· Since January 10th, 8 people have lost their lives on Toronto’s roads.
· 7 of those deaths have been pedestrians.
· 5 women and 2 men
· Aged 31 to 80
· They were struck in the morning, evening and night (3 morning, 3 evening, 2 night)
· Good weather, poor weather, daylight and darkness
· Small vehicles to the largest ones on our roads
· From our downtown to the suburbs of Toronto
· 4 killed mid block (“Jay Walking”)
· 2 killed at intersections with vehicles turning
· 1 killed at intersection by vehicle proceeding straight
· The only common thread between all of these deaths are Vehicles and Humans
· Vehicles don’t kill or injure by themselves, the humans operating them set their destructive ability in place
· Traffic controls provide a guide for a “right of way”,
· Human situational awareness, sound decisions and common sense dictate if you should take that “right of way”
· Human error is the true cause and blame in all of these collisions.
· Human decisions have dictated the outcomes.
· Human choices have changed so many lives.
Ensuring pedestrian and traffic safety is a priority of the Toronto Police Service.
While we strive to reduce the number of collisions across Toronto, we hope that the perception of our road users is that they are safe.
Statistics show us that Toronto is one of the safest cities in the world for traffic.
In 2009, Toronto saw the fewest number of road deaths in its modern history. Even with only 48 deaths last year, our most vulnerable road users, pedestrians and cyclists, are telling us, “We don’t feel safe.”
We want to change those feelings to reflect the reality that by and large, you are safe on our streets.
Toronto has witnessed unexplained, short term spikes in both death and injury collisions in the past many times. Our belief is this is a spike once again, only with more attention as our neighbours in the GTA have seen the same collisions happening in their jurisdictions.
But it is not the nature of the Toronto Police Service to wait for a short term rise in crime to go away by itself and we will not wait for this to go away by itself either.
Traffic Services and all the Divisions across Toronto are engaging this recent problem by having officers pay special attention to pedestrian and driving offences that put lives unnecessarily at risk.
Enforcement and education are tools that have both been shown to effectively increase safety, reduce lawlessness create better neighbourhoods.
The Toronto Police Service will increase its efforts educate when the opportunity arises and enforce when warranted.
The people of Toronto have told us that enforcement for law breakers needs to be increased to re-establish a sense of civility on our roads so that those who operate within the bounds of safety and cooperation are the norm, not the exception.
Drivers can not operate with a sense of entitlement to our roads with a “me first” attitude.
Pedestrians must not walk with the belief that all drivers will see them and therefore compromise their own safety by not taking ownership and responsibility for their own safety.
Pedestrians can expect that when they interfere with traffic while crossing the road, don’t use crosswalks properly and endanger their own lives and the lives of others that they will be dealt with in the most appropriate manner.
Drivers who don’t make the safe operation of their vehicles paramount can expect to be reminded of the priority of safety through penalties and sanctions.
The Toronto Police Service will strategically position officers where problems have historically occurred or volumes demand action.
Road safety is everyone’s responsibility. It is a responsibility that begins with you and ends with your fellow road users all taking care to cooperate and be safe with each other’s lives.
Marites, Nouhad, Leena, Leovina, Chen, Yonas, Juliette...
You may been know in data analysis and media reports as numbers, but you are sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers to those who love you and for that, the people of Toronto owe it to your memory to learn from the loss of your lives to prevent future deaths from happening.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Analysis of the Toronto pedestrian fatalities of 2009
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Another pedestrian killed in GTA
TORONTO - A woman in her 30s became the 14th pedestrian to die on GTA roadways this month after she was struck and killed by an SUV in the city's west end last night.
Police said the woman, 38, was struck by a Dodge Durango travelling northbound on Symington Avenue as it made a left turn onto Davenport Road at around 6:25 p.m.
Sergeant Tim Burrows of Toronto Police Traffic Services said the woman was crossing Davenport at Symington but was walking west of the intersection, outside the crosswalk.
"The light was green for north and south and she was crossing the road with the lights," he said. "Unfortunately, she was a little bit outside the crosswalk, which may have surprised the driver. We're not really sure yet."
Meanwhile yesterday, a Woodbridge man who was hit by a streetcar while crossing Queen Street near Broadview Avenue shortly after midnight Saturday died in hospital.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2484125#ixzz0dmHi0Yqz
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Saturday, January 23, 2010
11 Fatalities, 11 Days in GTA
Man on crutches fatally injured by dump truck
Pedestrians resumed crossing against red flashing signals in a Riverdale intersection soon after paramedics removed a man’s body just after mid-day Friday.
The 57-year-old, a student at nearby City Adult Learning Centre (CATC), is the GTA’s 10th pedestrian killed on streets within 11 days.
His name was not released.
Toronto Police Traffic Sgt. Tim Burrows said the victim was walking east on the south side of Danforth Ave., on a green light around 11:30 a.m. when he was hit by a large eastbound dump truck that turned south onto Broadview Ave.
His crutches lay next to the body near a sidewalk curb outside a Pizza Pizza outlet.
As a reporter waited on a north sidewalk at the intersection in mid-afternoon, a woman clutching her young son’s hand crossed to the south side, where only a small police chalked cross marked where the pedestrian fell. A cyclist then pedalled north.
Both adults ignored the blinking red-hand-shaped no-crossing signals.
At mid-day, as police took measurements and photos, CALC student Max McGowan, 18, said too many pedestrians “cross when they’re not supposed to.”
CATC guidance counsellor Anita Sachanska said the victim enrolled last week for his next classes.
“I used to see him in the hallway,” she said, adding “he was very friendly ... he said hello to everybody.”
Program leader Ray Wolf said he was “cheerful, but had difficulty getting around” to lower hall classrooms and on nearby streets.
Principal Mike Rethazi said he “made an announcement to the students to be careful when they are out,” then held a staff meeting.
He didn’t know the man, “but we all felt pretty awful. It’s been very traumatic.”
This was the first such fatality at the school, which has more than 2,000 students, Rethazi said.
The school’s flag was lowered to half-mast.
The driver of the Gio Contracting Inc. truck stopped 80 metres south of the intersection, where vehicles were barred by police for about an hour.
This was the fifth pedestrian-vehicle fatality on city streets since Jan. 1, compared to two by the same time in 2009, Burrows said, adding 31 were killed last year.
Three other pedestrians were struck by vehicles in Toronto through the day, none fatally.
• A woman in her 30s hit on an Allen Expressway ramp at Lawrence Ave. around 7 a.m. had head injuries.
• A man stepping off a Bathurst streetcar at College St. had undisclosed minor injuries.
• A woman was clipped by the mirror of a car making a turn at Martin Grove Ave. and Steeles Ave.
“The biggest factor is human error by both pedestrians and drivers,” Burrows said. “And most of these cases seem to happen on days like this, clear skies, good visibility and dry roads.
“It’s everyone’s responsibility,” he said.
Burrows said streets “are only as safe as people choose.”
Investigators asked anyone with information to contact police at 416-808-1900 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-8477.
ian.robertson@sunmedia.ca
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Heads up, pedestrians
Nine fatalities in nine days
The numbers are shocking — nine pedestrians in the GTA killed in just nine days — and for many in this city, the grim reaper is obvious.
The terrible, evil car.
But as much as the anti-car lobby will not want to hear it, the ones at fault are just as often the pedestrians themselves.
No one wants to blame the victim, and no one would argue that the battle between a person and 1,000 kg of crushing metal is an even one. But that said, too many pedestrians strut about our streets as entitled or distracted or as aggressive as their similarly guilty counterparts behind the wheel.
Heads down, iPods in their ears, running for the bus or their streetcar, protected by their God-given right to step into live traffic while drivers screech to a halt.
Case in point: Wednesday’s early morning fatality in which a woman in her ’30s, dressed in dark clothing, attempted to cross Dufferin St., just south of Eglinton Ave. W., not at the lights but at a point where the driver in a blue minivan had no ability to see her until it was too late.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” says Toronto Police Const. Hugh Smith. By crossing mid-block, he adds, you’re “literally taking your life in your hands.”
Contrary to what most of us have always assumed, the traffic services officer says there is no law against jaywalking in Ontario. Instead, pedestrians are allowed to cross as long as the coast is clear.
But that doesn’t mean you can dart across the street and expect that oncoming traffic will be able to stop in time.
Jaywalkers, though, seem to think they can.
“In many cases, they feel they’re the pedestrians and cars have an obligation to stop for them and they can just go,” says Joanne Banfield, manager of trauma prevention programs at Sunnybrook hospital.
“That’s why one of our messages is, ‘You may have the right of way, but you may end up being dead right.’”
Together with the Toronto Area Safety Coalition, Sunnybrook launched iNavigait in October to promote better pedestrian safety awareness, with their motto: “Cross the street as if your life depends on it.”
Pedestrian injuries and fatalities spike with the shorter daylight hours between November and late February, with seniors being the most vulnerable, Banfield says. Last year, 19 of the 31 pedestrians killed in Toronto were over 65.
She advises pedestrians to be more visible by wearing brighter colours, make eye contact with drivers before crossing and always wait until the walking person icon appears on the signal before stepping off the curb.
“A lot of people are not paying attention as they’re crossing. They’re having conversations or they’re listening to music with ear buds in their ears or they’re texting or they’re looking for their bus,” Banfield says. “Pedestrians have to take responsibility for their actions as well.”
Run off his feet these last nine days, Const. Smith lays the blame for the recent carnage as much on pedestrians as he does on motorists. Of the four recent fatalities in Toronto, two involved errors made by those who were struck and killed: Wednesday’s jaywalking accident on Dufferin and on Jan. 12, an 80-year-old woman who died after crossing when drivers had the right of way at Dundas St. W. and Roncesvalles Ave.
As a longtime officer with traffic services, he’s seen the guilty on both sides: The distracted drivers who have mowed down pedestrians while barrelling through their right turns on red lights and pedestrians getting clipped as they tried bolting across live traffic lanes in a dangerous game of leapfrog. Each is in their own cocoon, equally oblivious to the other.
“There’s responsibility on both parts,” Smith says of drivers and pedestrians. “There’s complacency and poor choices on both sides. To me it’s totally equal.”
There is no magic bullet, he says. No easy solution. Instead, it’s about everyone stepping out of their respective bubbles and communicating like human beings again: being considerate, making eye contact, respecting each other.
“Unfortunately our society is in too much of a hurry and pedestrians and drivers aren’t paying attention,” agrees Banfield, who is also chairman of the Toronto Area Safety Coalition. “Society really needs to slow down.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Greater GTA (Suburban Toronto) more deadly for pedestrians, study shows
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
TORONTO — From Saturday's Globe and MailPublished on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 12:00AM ESTLast updated on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 3:55AM EST
A recent spate of roadside pedestrian deaths - a mother killed pushing her infant son, an 80-year-old woman crossing the street - has raised questions about how dangerous Toronto really is for people on foot.
In spite of the heavy traffic that clogs the city's downtown, pedestrians are more likely to be mowed down by vehicles outside the core, according to statistics provided by the Toronto police.
Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough all proved deadlier than central Toronto over the past three years: More people were killed overall in the outer boroughs as the open suburban streets with their widely spaced intersections transformed into mini-highways in the minds of motorists, and, in some cases, pedestrians failed to follow the rules of the road.
Last year saw a total of 19 pedestrian deaths in those outer regions compared with 12 downtown - a picture similar to previous years. And despite the heavy foot traffic downtown, some of the most dangerous intersections for making right turns and hitting pedestrians were north of the city's hub.
"Even though there are not as many pedestrians out there, when there is a collision in those outskirts it's usually pretty horrific," said Constable Hugh Smith of Traffic Services.
Just two weeks into the new year, there have been grim reminders of how fragile life can be walking the streets of Toronto and beyond. Marites Mendoza was pronounced dead soon after ambulances arrived at Martin Grove Road and Eglinton Avenue on Tuesday afternoon. She was pushing her seven-week-old son in a stroller when a Toyota Camry driven by an 83-year-old woman allegedly ran a red light. The child survived.
On the same day, an 80-year-old woman was struck and killed by a car at Dundas Street West and Roncesvalles Avenue as she crossed the intersection with her 42-year-old son outside the pedestrian-designated area, police said.
Such tragedies raise questions about road design and what can be done to get motorists and pedestrians to slow down. Constable Smith said that in areas such as the Beach, heavy pedestrian traffic coupled with more crosswalks, traffic lights and speed bumps force drivers to move more slowly and to increase their awareness.
But the outskirts are built for cars, not necessarily people. The roads are wider, more difficult to cross, and the cars move that much faster. The two most common ways pedestrians are injured? Cars rushing through left or right turns where pedestrians are moving along the crosswalk, and pedestrians crossing against the signal or illegally walking into the roadway.
"Everything is preventable to me. All collisions are preventable," Constable Smith said. He added that police are working on a road-safety information campaign, targeting groups such as seniors and high-school students.
Dylan Reid, co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee, a citizens advisory group, wants more done. Outside the core, he's noticed the lines on crosswalks have faded and cars drive above the speed limit. As a result, drivers have less time to react when pedestrians rush in front of their cars.
"It's frustrating to think that there are lots of things that can be done to make walking much safer in Toronto. The city knows what needs to be done, and the city has said it wants to do them, but these things are happening very slowly," Mr. Reid said.
Pedestrian advocates said time is of the essence as baby boomers age and are eventually forced to abandon their vehicles. The number of seniors killed in traffic accidents continues to climb: About 60 per cent of pedestrian fatalities last year were among those over 65, compared with 44 per cent the previous year.
Mike Brady, manager of traffic safety for Toronto Transportation Services, said the city has almost completed the pedestrian countdown signal program and is moving to put more markings on crosswalks. He noted that the number of pedestrians injured in motor-vehicle collisions has remained relatively constant over the past few years, even as the population has increased.
"The city is doing the best it can to mitigate these [accidents]," Mr. Brady said. "The pedestrians themselves are more aware of the risks of walking across the street, and motorists also are more aware."
****
Dangerous crossings
Here are the top 10 Toronto intersections where collisions have occurred as a result of vehicles making right turns and striking pedestrians crossing with and without the right of way, resulting in serious injury.
1. Bathurst St and
Finch Ave W
2. Birchmount Rd and
Sheppard Ave E
3. Bathurst St and
King St W
4. McCowan Rd and
Sheppard Ave E
5. Yonge St and
Finch Ave E
6. Sheppard Ave E and
Parkway Forest Dr
7. Dundas St W and
Spadina Ave
8. Weston Rd and
Finch Ave W
9. Gerrard St E
and Main St
10. Bloor St W and
Lansdowne Ave
PEDESTRIAN FATALITIES
2009: 31*
Downtown core: 12
Etobicoke: 2
North York: 11
Scarborough: 6
*includes 19 seniors (65+)
PEDESTRIANS STRUCK IN MOTOR-VEHICLE COLLISIONS*
2007: 2,295
2008: 2,059
2009: 2,025
*ranges from fatalities to small bumps
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Baby saved by an angel. Passerby rescues boy as mom killed by car
A quick-thinking woman is being credited with saving the life of a 12-week-old boy, scooping him to safety from the carnage of an accident that killed his 28-year-old mom.
The woman came dangerously close to being struck herself over the noon-hour yesterday at Martin Grove Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W. where a car plowed into the mom who was pushing her baby in a stroller.
“That woman is a hero in my eyes,” Const. Hugh Smith said yesterday at the scene.
“In all the confusion, people could easily have left the child lying there in the cold and who knows what might have happened,” he said.
“But she had the presence of mind to pick him up and get him to a warm place.”
The tot was taken to hospital but he is expected to be okay.
Police downplayed earlier reports that the mother had, in a last desperate act, shoved the stroller to safety just as she was run down.
“It may have been a last-ditch effort by the mother to save her child,” Smith said, but added it was unlikely she had enough time.
“It really doesn’t make a difference,” Smith said. “We still have a mother who has perished from this and a young child who is motherless.”
The pedestrian was crossing with the light from the southwest corner to the southeast around 12:40 p.m. when she was killed.
Smith said she passed the centre median and walked by a car that was waiting to turn left, pushing her child in front of her, when a northbound Toyota Camry driven by an 83-year-old woman plowed into her.
“She failed to stop at the light and struck the mother and the child in the stroller,” Smith said.
“The child was knocked out of the stroller onto the ground and the mother was pinned beneath the vehicle and dragged into the middle of the intersection,” he said.
The woman died at the scene about 15 minutes later.
Police were still trying to track down family members late in the day.
The road was dry at the time of the accident. But Smith said the sunshine may have been a factor, especially if the elderly woman’s window’s were dirty.
He said the motorist, who was “in shock,” will face charges.
The intersection was closed all afternoon, as were the ramps from nearby Hwy. 27 to eastbound Eglinton.
Witnesses are asked to call investigators at 416-808-1900, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.
Reposted from the Toronto Sun, Wednesday, January 13, 2010, Original article click here.
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca
Speeding MD sparks a debate Should doctor racing to emergency get ticket?
There is no consensus in the case of the cop-cardiologist conundrum.
Was the police officer who gave the doctor a speeding ticket overly rigid? Was the speeding doctor overly reckless? Did both do something wrong? Did neither?
Perhaps you'd have to be a brain surgeon to figure it all out. The heart surgeons can't.
"There's no right answer to it," says Gideon Cohen, a staff cardiovascular surgeon at Sunnybrook hospital who has sometimes run red lights – though cautiously – when rushing to the operating table. "The police say if you're speeding you're endangering other people even though you're trying to save somebody's life; you're endangering yourself and other people's lives as well. Having said that, if it's your mother on the table, then you want – know what I mean?"
On the table at St. Michael's Hospital on Saturday was Jeffrey Halstrom, a 47-year-old who had suffered a heart attack. Racing to his side, allegedly at 35 km/h above a 40 km/h speed limit in the Bayview and Moore Aves. area, was cardiologist Michael Kutryk, who was to perform angioplasty.
While Halstrom waited, Kutryk was pulled over and handed a $300 ticket. According to Halstrom's partner, Kutryk said upon his late arrival that he had been delayed "for the better part of 10 minutes."
Experts in ethics came down on different sides of the thorny dilemma when asked for their thoughts Tuesday.
Saint Mary's University philosophy professor Chris MacDonald applied a rule-based ethical doctrine. Society would be worse off, he said, if police officers always let excuse-making speeders off scot-free.
"(Kutryk) claims that there's something urgent going on at the hospital, but the police officer doesn't have any way to know that," MacDonald said. "And so you sort of have to ask yourself, do you really want the police letting people go because they claim to have some sort of emergency going on? ... Are they supposed to look into the individual's eyes and judge whether it really is a life-and-death situation or whether it's a quote-unquote `life-and-death situation' where they're late for dinner?"
Susan Dimock, a York University philosophy professor and past director of the school's Centre for Practical Ethics, applied a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. The "minor risk, or minor increased risk" created by Kutryk's speeding, she said, was far outweighed by the benefits of treating his patient in a timely manner.
Brian Patterson, president of the Ontario Safety League, sided with the police officer. He argued that Kutryk's speeding increased the likelihood that he would kill any pedestrian he struck; Kutryk, he said, "may not have considered the risk he was putting the public at."
Toronto doctor and ethicist Philip Hebert says he's been pulled over by police more than once while speeding to a medical emergency, and never been given a ticket.
Once, he even got a police escort to the hospital – just like something out of the movies.
Hebert, who also teaches medical ethics at the University of Toronto and is author of Doing Right: A Practical Guide to Ethics for Medical Trainees and Physicians, says the officer in this case should have allowed the doctor to proceed to St. Michael's – and even helped him get there quickly.
"Attempting to save a life is on a higher plane" than traffic laws, Hebert said.
"There should always be some flexibility in the rules."
Cohen, the Sunnybrook surgeon, said "it's tough to justify" speeding to the operating table even though he himself has done it.
But he said the officer's decision to not only issue the ticket but also make Kutryk waste precious minutes waiting for it was "excessive."
He proposed a compromise. "Take his licence plate number, follow him to the hospital and put (the ticket) on his car or something."
Reposted from the Toronto Star, Wednesday January 13, 2010.